Billy Clifford is an Irish traditional flautist from County Kerry.
Aide from his solo performances and recordings, Clifford played with the Star of Munster Trio, alongside his parents John and Julia Clifford, or his uncle Denis Murphy. His flute was a distinctive sound in Sliabh Luachra music, at a time when flute players were not so common. Several decades later,Clifford is still keen to preserve the regional character of his music, and to present Read more on Last.fm

Twenty-one comments

Later

Unique?

This recording is possibly unique, in that it’s the only recording I know of devoted to the music of Co.Kerry [ & also Tipperary ] played on the concert flute. There are some solo tracks , and the rest are a trio of flute, accordion and [unfortunately, as far as I am concerned],drums. I wouldn’t call it virtuoso playing by the standards of today, but Billy Clifford is highly regarded as a player of polkas and slides by his peers. Also unusual in that he plays a flute with the “Radcliffe” system of keys.

Billy Clifford

I play with Billy on a friday night in The Granery a pub in Cahir Co Tipperary where we hold a weekly session. He is a fine player of polkas and slides and I did not know he had made any recordings as he would not talk of them, I must ask him about them. Anybody in the area in more than welcome to come and join us.
Good Luck
Mike

Billy recorded a couple of setsof solo flute for volume 2 of "Wooden Flute Obsession". Only 1 set appears on the CD. The rest are up to him to release if he wishes. He said this was his first recording in about 25 years, but seemed open to possibly record with an accordion player he regularly plays with. He plays boths the Radcliffe and a wooden Boehm.

Near as I can tell (I just have a dub of this on a data CD) track 9 listed here is actually two tracks - The Hollyford Jigs is track 9 and the Flowing Tide is track 10. There are 21 tracks on my CD dub.

Tune titles: some gaps filled

A pal of mine is on a tear lately sourcing out of print albums. ‘Org members are sending him tapes and I’m converting them to digital on my iBook with the Griffin iMic. While I’m doing that, I try to fill in the gaps on tune titles. So, for this album:

Track 3, Tune 1: Matt Hayes’s Jig
5,1: The Cordal Jig
6,1: Seanbhean Na GCartai
6,2: The Coalminers’ (aka More Power to Your Elbow)
8,2: Tie the Bonnet
9,1: The Hollyford Jig
the 1st tune in the Michael Coleman jig set is "Wheels of the World"
the last set on the album is "Billy Broker’s" and "Muckross Abbey"

Billy Clifford & The Billy Clifford Trio

" ~ after leaving school, he returned to England in 1959 where his parents began playing again in London’s Irish dance halls. By now Billy was playing piccolo, but soon progressed to flute and began his own separate musical career, linking up with his parents in the mid-1960s to form one of the most renowned London-Irish groups of the era, The Star of Munster Trio, which released a classic album for Topic. Billy went back to Ireland at the end of the decade, basing himself in Tipperary town, where he joined the Cappagh White Céilí Band, later marrying its drummer, Catherine Ryan. Winning the All-Ireland flute title in 1970 cemented Billy’s reputation on home turf and he recorded his own solo album in 1976/1977. Rather an oddity, this in part features Billy’s accomplished flute (a keyed wooden Radcliffe) on a number of tunes acquired from the family repertoire including Bill the Waiver’s (named after Julia’s illustrious father, Bill Murphy), interspersed with the trio formed with Catherine and accordionist Matt Hayes to play Tipperary set dances."

If it was out of ‘disrespect’ I wouldn’t have bothered to give any links or credit… But I should know better, where you are concerned, to avoid it at all costs… I’ll ask Jeremy to axe it. I would not want to contribute anything that the source was unhappy with… I would write this direct, but won’t, considering past problems there…

Sorry Floss, I usually do, really, but screwed up, not the first time. It was someone who contacted me and asked about this recording. Sadly I haven’t my LPs on hand and instead of just sending them the info, and your clearer description than I’d be capable of, I added it here. Mea culpa… I admit my oversight.

Keep up the good works ~ and I’ll try to keep my dyslexic oversights under better control. I promise, it causes me more frustrations than others, though my wife gets a bit fed up with it too from time to time.

Nerd alert, instead of working on music I’ve been buried under thousands of digital files seeking out bugs in my dear wife’s work and this computer, including all last night and today, right now. Helping someone find information on Billy Clifford was an escape while doing this. Again, sorry for the clumsiness and oversight… :-/ I have written Jeremy so expect all this will eventually be cleared away…

Thanks, I’ll at least get him to clear my useless bits here. I also own the booklet produced for this set of recordings, but alas, also not on hand… ~ Still digitally frustrated with corrupt files here. Appreciated Floss, apologies I remain apprehensive about ‘contact’, but the respect of what you know and do remains…